


Backward by Sixes

by Ranni



Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Captivity, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Hulk, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Torture, Self Harm, Sleep Deprivation, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-22 00:10:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11368533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Tony and Clint are held prisoner by people that want the plans to Tony's newest arc reactor. Gaslighting and sleep deprivation are used to break the captives until eventually they turn on one another.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MillyVeil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillyVeil/gifts).



> This is dedicated to the lovely MillyVeil, creator of amazing fanfic, who gave me this prompt and cured my writer's block. She also kindly read a first draft and listened to me whine about my toddler.

*******  
"You think they're going to hurt us?"

"Without question." Clint is eyeing him carefully, probably expecting a freak out.

But Tony isn't afraid as much as he is disgusted. "This is just so--" He gestures vaguely with cuffed hands. "How does this sort of thing even come to _be_? Are there books someone has written on the proper method of sticking bamboo under fingernails? Are there conferences, symposiums, where everyone forms breakaway groups and mimes out waterboarding one another? Some douche droning through powerpoint slides of a beatdown, illustrated step by step?"

"There's always people that know how to hurt," Clint says, leaning forward to tug experimentally at the chain that holds his wrists to the wall behind him. He frowns at it over his shoulder. "And always someone else willing to learn, to try it for reasons of their own. A lot of torturers even think, in the beginning, that _they_ are the ones doing it for the right reason."

"I can't ever imagine being that deluded. I mean, that's just stupid."

Clint smiles at him sadly. "Yeah, well. We live in a pretty stupid world."

*******

It's quickly clear that the bespectacled and somewhat balding man who introduces himself as Franklin is the one in charge. The man's watery gray eyes seem to run right into his pale cheeks, which then blend into his listless not-brown-not-blond hair. The man reminds Tony of a poorly executed paint by number project, of an egg over easy that broke in the pan, of white rice that has been microwaved too many times. Bland, unappealing, with a hint of patheticness.

"I want the schematics for the new reactor," Franklin tells Tony again.

He shrugs apologetically. "If wishes were horses, and all that. It can't happen, my man."

"It doesn't have to be this way. You can make it easier on yourself. And on him." He cocks his head to indicate Clint, who wrinkles his nose.

"And _you_ could always, you know, just _not_ do whatever horrible thing you're planning," Tony suggests. "I mean, there _is_ that."

"You'll be killed in the end," Clint warns, and there's an odd quality of camaraderie in his voice, of an older brother advising a younger sibling. "I mean, I guess you'll do what you think you have to, but when our buddies show up, well... Let's just say, whatever you end up doing, the Black Widow will give you back times three." He smirks ruefully. "She's a bit protective."

"I'll take my chances," Franklin answers. He sighs and pushes himself away from the desk. "Alright." He motions to one of the guards by the door. Split 'em up. I want Stark in the green room, Barton in the red."

*******

They dump Tony in a windowless room that had once been a minty, institutional green, but much of the paint has flaked off the walls in large patches. They uncuff him and he rubs his aching wrists as he sits on the bed in the corner. He waits for something to happen, but as the hours pass and nothing does he lays down instead.

He pops awake awhile later to a guard staring at him.

"Creeper," he mutters as he is secured and frogmarched to a different room.

Franklin is there, sitting again at the desk to the side, and so is Clint, arms raised and chained to a hook from the ceiling, his body stretched painfully as he balances precariously on his tiptoes.

He grins when he sees Tony, despite the strain in his face. "You're okay."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Stark is just fine," Franklin observes dryly, all business. He snaps his computer closed. "And now that he's _finally_ awake you can get down, and we can get started."

*******

They unhook him from the ceiling, and Christ, what a relief _that_ is. Clint had been convinced his shoulders were dislocated, but now he thinks they might only be sincerely fucked up instead. That's good, that's something he can work with--popping shoulders back in their sockets while handcuffed, on the other hand, has never been in his particular skillset.

He and Tony are seated on the other side of Franklin's desk. Franklin's talking, then Tony's talking, Franklin threatens, Tony snarks, Franklin waits, and Clint decides it's time to participate. He's exhausted and he aches down to his bones from that hook, but he also needs a chance to think while he's sitting comfortably enough to do so, and luckily his mouth runs independently of his brain rather easily when he needs it to.

"Franklin. Is that your first or your last name? Like 'Franklin Roosevelt' or more like 'Ben Franklin'? I'm going to call you Benjamin, I hope that's okay." Clint shrugs at the man's sour look. "Anyway, I'm going to tell you a story. And I want you to pay attention when I get to the part with the watermelons, because, trust me, it's both relevant _and_ important."

There are bolts in the walls and in the floor, and there's no screws around the plates, so they likely went in when the cement was poured. There's a drain in the middle of the floor. Drains mean water, vomit, blood. This room was planned out for the express purpose of torture, and these guys are professionals.

"--that was fun, a real toe tapper, but I personally prefer a partner that--" he prattles on. Tony's eyebrows are raised, and he looks rather amused in spite of himself.

Franklin has all the appearance of a milquetoast, but Clint is certain it's a clever camouflage. The man definitely has a thorough knowledge of stress positions, Clint having been forced into a number of them over the last few hours. He also separated his prisoners, increasing their worry of what might be happening to the other, so headgames are probably his preferred artistic medium. Clint continues talking a mile a minute while he looks over Franklin's suit, a department store special with aspirations of appearing designer, and his bland face, which is carefully expressionless. The whole package is one of a cheap, knock off Phil Coulson, as lousy and phony as Franklin's shitty suit. Clint wonders if it's just a coincidence or if Franklin had been selected for this resemblance, just to fuck with his head.

"--she said 'That's not edible' and I said 'I don't care, I'll eat _anything_ ' and then she said--"

Then again, it's ridiculous to assume that any of this, or any person in it, was chosen for _his_ benefit--this is all about Tony and his tech. As usual. Clint sighs inwardly. It's not easy having a friend that knows how to make weapons of mass destruction. Tony is a great guy and all, but _geez_. What a bullshit hassle.

"--it would have been neater with rubber gloves, but, hey, we were poor. So instead we just--"

He's sure the main game will be sleep deprivation, especially since they took Tony away and let him rest while they kept Clint up without respite. Sleep deprivation is bad news. Drugs are awful, but Clint has been able to stubbornly plow his way through most of them when used. Physical torture is not something he enjoys--especially being burned, he _hates_ that shit--but Clint's pain tolerance is sky high and he has a headspace he retreats to when things get really rough. But sleep deprivation is a real bear, because he can't reason his way through it. He's been there plenty of times in sniper situations and once very memorably back in training, and his experience is that on the third day the hallucinations invariably start to settle in, and if that happens here he's well and truly fucked. He's never gone beyond four days awake--Coulson would have pulled him from any sniper's nest long before that, and even SHIELD wasn't cruel enough to make their agents risk a psychotic episode in training just to prove a point about how horrible torture can be.

"You know those little lights that miners wear on their helmets? It looked kind of like that. So then--remember the watermelon? It comes into play here, when the third guy--"

Clint was already tired; they'd been in southeast Asia dealing with a conflict between competing arms dealers before he and Tony had gotten captured. Clint's strong, but pulling back that bow a hundred times or more in the space of an hour on top of some serious jet lag...well, he wasn't exactly in tiptop shape coming into this thing.

"And that," he concludes dramatically, "is the story of my first sexual experience."

Tony exchanges a look with Franklin, who has long since quit feigning disinterest. "Jesus God, Barton. That was...I mean...you are a nasty bastard."

"Yes. I know."

"There is no _way_ any of that is true. No way in hell."

"It was all true. Even the lies. Especially the lies." He rolls his shoulders. "Now, shall I regale you with the story of the time the entire circus caught crabs? Folks would later say that it started when the strongman went to that whorehouse, but it was actually my own dear brother who--"

"Enough," Franklin snaps.

"Don't like to hear about body lice?" Clint asks innocently, widening his eyes. "One guy even had them in his beard. I wonder how they got there."

"Enough, I said!"

A guard comes in and pulls Clint off his chair, then beats him with methodical disinterest, using a rubber club that doesn't break his skin but hurts like hell. It's a relief, in a way--direct and to the point. Clint only wishes that Tony didn't have to watch.

Of course, Tony being forced to watch is the whole reason they do it.

And they do it for days.

*******

Tony is tired, and that makes him feel like an utter asshole, because Clint is beyond exhausted. They've been here three days now and while Tony is taken back to the green room to sleep for a few hours here and there, Clint has been awake the entire time. And he looks bad. Very bad.

Tony is secured to the wall by a length of chain, enough that he can sit or stand reasonably comfortably as needed, but not enough to reach the door or any other people in the room. They have Clint sitting up high on his knees, with his wrists chained out in front of him and also from behind on his elbows. When the fatigue becomes too much, whatever way he falls, either backward or forward or to the side, the chains catch him, jerk him back upright. Sometimes Franklin or one of the guards kick him awake when he drifts; Clint's legs are a mess of bruises from their steel toed boots.

"I just got a text from Natasha," Clint says suddenly into what had been a long silence, the only sound being Franklin tapping away on his laptop. "They're heading over, want to know if we want them to pick up some sandwiches for us on their way to kill Franklin." He looks at Tony expectantly. "Well? Want something? I know  _I_ could eat."

Tony laughs uneasily. He's pretty sure Clint is joking, trying to make things easier, but he sounds thick, as if drugged or heavily drunk. "I didn't know you still had a phone on you. Where was it, up your ass?"

"How well you know me. Thing's been jumping all morning. Like, just a few minutes ago I got an email with the subject line 'This is crazy! My neck mole was gone in 8 hours with this one weird trick!' You think that's junk mail? I mean, _maybe_ it's legit but..." Clint frowns, then shrugs. "I dunno, it just doesn't sound terribly likely."

"Unless you have a mole that needs immediate removal I think you're safe to delete that."

"Well, _I_ don't, but a person super close to me does." He raises an eyebrow at Franklin. "Want me to forward this to you, Ben? I mean, in case you're worried about that ungodly thing on your neck. I've got your contact info. It's PsychoMcAsshat@NoCock.com, right?" He presses his finger into the air while making obnoxious _bleep bloop bleep_ sounds. "There. It should be there any second." Clint laughs a little hysterically, but then his face falls and he sags as much as the chains will allow. "Ugh. _Fuck_. Ugh."

"Just hold on, man, we're going to be okay," Tony tells him, horrified to see the facade crumble. He glares at Franklin. "Let him rest, he's had enough. Let him lay down, you bastard."

" _You_ let him," Franklin answers mildly. "We're waiting on _you_ , Mr. Stark."

*******

Clint's thoughts are fast, disordered. He thinks he sees Barney out of the corner of his eye, perched on top of a cabinet, legs dangling, knees dirty and scabbed over. But then there is no Barney, and no cabinet either. He gives his head a shake to clear it, and that messes with his equilibrium. He can feel his eyes trembling, and God, he _hates_ that. He knows the feeling well from years of sniper duty, waiting waiting waiting for-fucking- _ever_ for a mark to show. When his eyes would tremor like this he knew it was time to give up, that he would make a mistake if he tried to go any longer.

 _Coulson, it's going to hell_ , he'd say, or some variation of the same. And Phil would believe him, would know that Clint would never give up early, would never throw in the towel if he wouldn't endanger the mission by staying.

_Can you give me another hour? Enough time to get another agent up there?_

"Yeah. Yeah, I can." Clint nods. He can hold on a little longer yet. Just so Phil can get things fixed up right. Sure. What's one more hour after so many?

"Who are you talking to?"

Clint blinks and it's Tony sitting there, biting his lip and looking worried. He looks around, disoriented, because he would have sworn he was in a sniper's nest and not here...wherever _here_ is. Thoughts and memories slide around like sluggish tectonic plates, finally snapping together in an order that he can almost follow. They want Tony's tech. They're hurting him to get to Tony. He hasn't slept in...a lot of days. He's not sure how many.

"Tony. Hey. I can't remember if you ever...Did you, did you, did you ever meet Phil Coulson?"

Tony frowns. "Yeah. I knew him."

"Really?" Clint grins, but Tony just looks unhappier. "I missed his funeral, you know. They wouldn't let me go. I didn't go to my parents' either. Or my brother's. I don't know where anyone is buried. I can almost pretend they didn't die. I can close my eyes and pretend my brother is sitting on one side of me, Phil on the other. Sometimes I think if I just rest my head like so, it will lay on their shoulder. I know it's not true," he adds hastily, noting Tony's unhappy expression. "I just...I just like to imagine it sometimes."

"That's nice, I guess."

The door slides open and Franklin steps in. He looks bright and eager in his ill fitting suit. "Time for bed, Mr. Stark. I'll keep Mr. Barton company as he burns the midnight oil."

******

It must be night, because Tony's gone, but Clint's learned day and night don't really have much significance when one's been awake for almost a week. Not really.

"I'll make you a deal," the man who is and isn't Phil Coulson says. "If you can count backward perfectly from a hundred by...let's say, _sixes_...then I'll take you to the green room and let you take a nap. How's that sound?"

God, it sounds _great_. It sounds like everything he's ever wanted, dreamed about, and hoped for, all wrapped up together. To lay down and sleep. They don't even have to let him go. Or Tony. Clint doesn't care what happens to either of them next, if he can just rest. He'll happily count if they let him do that. He'll count forever.

"One hundred. Ninety-four," Clint says, then licks his lips. _By six_ , he tells himself. Minus a six. Just six. "Ninety--no, _eighty_ , eighty....eight. Eighty-eight..." Clint pauses, suddenly unsure. "Wait...am I counting up, or down?"

"Down," the man says tenderly. He's smiling from ear to ear, and Clint smiles hesitantly back.

Eighty-eight minus...six. His brain keeps switching the numbers; he can't keep clear on which is the answer and which is the one to be subtracted. "Eighty-t-t-t- _two_." He spits the word out finally, half triumphant, half furious. Then is lost again as his fevered mind tries to keep track of the old number, subtract, determine the new one. "Seven....ty. Seventy..."

Six. He's stuck on the fact that the second half of the answer is a six, but he's also subtracting by sixes, and everything is getting twisted painfully. _Six_. He blinks. Jesus, he's so tired. His head is throbbing, his eyes hurt. _Six._ Something comes after that. What comes after six?

He knows the answer.

"Seven." Seven comes after six. He's shaking, and the chains rattle with little windchime noises. "Seven. _Seven_. Seven." He can't remember why he's even saying numbers now, only knows that he's failing, that he was supposed to do it right and couldn't.

"No, I'm afraid that's wrong." The man shakes his head with a disappointed expression.

"Let me try again," Clint begs, but he can't remember what the question was in the first place.

*******

Tony doesn't want to sleep, it feels like the worst of betrayals to rest when his friend cannot, and he also knows they hurt Clint worse overnight. But he forces himself to rest all the same, because he has to keep his wits about him. He's exhausted and worried, and so often he has come close to begging, to wanting to offer Franklin something just so he'll _stop_. He can't let himself get any weaker, any closer to that brink. Because they can't have the reactor. Not ever.

He carves out a few hours of fitful, unsatisfying rest and he when wakes they take him to a new room, this time a blue one, where Clint sits on the floor, chained as usual. He's soaking wet and shivering; they must have been spraying him with the hose again. He's only in a pair of boxer briefs now, wet and clinging to his skin, which is blotchy with blue and purple bruises.

"I know the meaning of life," Clint says conspiratorially, in lieu of a greeting. His eyes are dilated wide, bloodshot around all black pupils. "I've seen it in my microscope."

"Oh God. You're okay," Tony croons frantically, wishing he could reach Clint, could touch him. "It's okay."

"Don't you want to hear it? You're a genius, you'll understand when I explain it. You would have figured it out yourself, but you have to be awake for a long time to see it. Most people can't do that. I've had some help, though. In a way, in a _lot_ of ways, I'm really lucky. But I'll tell you all about it for free. Because you're my friend. Wanna hear it?"

"Of course I do."

"It's right in front of our faces all the time. The colors are the secret. You know how blood looks blue? _Blue_. Right, but not right, the same way maps are obsolete the moment they leave the printer. The same way. The very same." Clint grins, all teeth and too wide. Tony doesn't think the archer is aware of the tears that leak steadily from his eyes

"Okay."

"It isn't blue. That's a lie. It's always red. Do you see it? It's a lie, a lie everyone believes because it's written on our own bodies, they see it everyday when they look down at their wrist. I can show you. You see?" He waves his arm as best he can and Tony feels sick, sees what's coming next telegraphed a mile away.

"Clint, please don't."

"But it's a lie, because, see _this_?" He tears into the skin on his arm casually with his teeth, biting all the parts that he can reach, blood spattering everywhere. "Red!" he announces gleefully. "Now, on a color wheel, the opposite of red is green, but this, under the skin, it's blue. _Looks_ blue, I mean. Blue looking blood." He points a shaking finger toward his chest. "My heart was blue. Just for awhile. But long enough. It's not a human heart anymore."

Tony clutches his temples. "Enough. Enough of this, please God. Don't bite yourself anymore, okay?"

"So blue is bad, and red is worse. We gotta find something green to be safe. The opposite of red. Cancels it out. That's the meaning, you see? Just like the blood, and the maps. Think we can find it? Because then we'll be free if we do. No more red. Its opposite. Green. Like grass. Like--"

Clint's eyes close and it's either a really long blink or one of those microsleeps that hit him, his head jerking and bobbing hard on his neck each time. His chin drops down toward his chest and he tumbles forward, only to be caught from behind by the chains, which go taut and snap him back by his elbows. Tony hears a sick popping noise, but Clint doesn't cry out, just makes a guttural groaning sound that is somehow a million times worse.

*******

Franklin tuts over the marks on Clint's arm. "Did _you_ do this?" he scolds with high humor. "That was very naughty of you, very naughty indeed." He rifles through his desk and pulls out a roll of duct tape, cuts off a few pieces that he presses firmly over the wounds. "There, all better. I must point out that the only time you've bled here is by your own doing. That means something, doesn't it?" He pats Clint's cheek tenderly. "Doesn't it?"

"I don't know," Clint answers finally.

"You don't know what?"

"I don't know...what we're talking about."

"Leave him alone," Tony blurts out finally, unable to help himself. "Don't touch him."

Franklin raises an eyebrow. "Then make me stop. Give me what I want and I'll happily stop." He sees Clint nod forward again and winds his fingers in the archer's short hair, pulling his head back sharply. "Wake up!"

"Stop," Tony grits out between clenched teeth. "Stop. Hurting. Him."

"You're forcing me to," Franklin reminds him. "You're the one in control here. In fact, you're so much in control that I'll even offer you some more power. How about when you're in a room together, _you_ keep him awake? Hmm? I bet he'd prefer that to the water hose, to shocks, to being beaten. You'd rather have your friend's gentle touch, wouldn't you?" He shakes Clint a little with the hand still fisted in his hair.

"Fine, fine," Tony says quickly. "I'll do it." He won't hurt Clint the way they have. He can try to comfort him, minimize his pain as much as possible. "But I have to be able to touch him. You have to let me be closer to him."

"Alright." Tony is surprised at the ready agreement. "But if you try anything, we'll go back to the tried and true method, and I'll cut his thumbs off, too. Sound fair?"

*******

"Wake up, come on Tweetie Bird." Tony shakes him by the arm as gently as he can, but it's not working. Clint isn't asleep so much as he is just _off_ , like a machine with its power cables suddenly cut. "Hey," Tony says louder, slapping his cheeks a little, eyeing the guard who glowers at them from the other side of the barred door. "Up. Up. Wake up, Agent Barton!" He hesitates then brings his hand down on Clint's shoulder, already wrenched painfully from the chains, presses firmly onto the swollen flesh.

Clint's eyes fly open and settle on Tony, who flinches from the agony and betrayal he reads there. "Fucker," Clint spits.

"You've got to try to stay awake, okay? I'm just trying to help. I don't want them to hurt you worse. Remember?"

He _does_ remember, sometimes. But things are careening rapidly downhill along with Clint's state of mind, and sometimes he remembers that Tony is on his side but more and more often he cannot.

*******

Clint doesn't know the actual name of whatever it is, to him it's always just been the 'rod thingy that people twist when they want to shut the blinds'. Maybe it doesn't even _have_ a special name. All Clint knows is that it hurts like a bastard when they whip it repeatedly against the soles of his feet.

He does okay with it at first, all things considered, but soon enough is writhing and then pressing his lips determinedly together, trying not to cry out as it goes on and on and on.

"Why--" he starts to ask, then chokes the words off. He also manages to bite through his lip at the same time and barely notices. It doesn't matter why they're doing it. And it's not the answer he needs anyway, the _why_ of it. "How long?" he gasps. "How long are you going to do this?"

"Until Sleeping Beauty opens his eyes," Franklin tells him. "We'll stop the second Tony Stark wakes up."

*******

It's the eighth day...at least Tony thinks it might be the eighth day.

They take him to the blue room, where Clint is already kneeling in the usual position. His whole body sags as much as its allowed by the chains, and his head rests against Franklin, who hovers close by, stroking his cheek affectionately.

"He slept so long, didn't he? Had a nice rest all safe and snug in the green room."

"Fuck you, Ben Franklin," Tony snarls.

" _He's_ doing this," Franklin says in Clint's ear, who moves his eyes sluggishly, struggles to focus on Tony. "He could stop all of this, set you free, but he doesn't. He can and he just _won't_. He's being so cruel."

"Tony." Clint's voice is hollow. "What? That's not right. That isn't true."

"Leave him alone!"

Franklin just grins, keeps whispering. "All he has to do is tell one secret. And he won't do it. Not for _your_ sake. Remember your feet? He slept like a baby while you screamed, and it never needed to happen, and nothing else _needs_ to happen. He thinks only of himself, what _he_ wants. He can make it all stop and he just won't."

"For...tech?" Clint is trying to puzzle it out, confused and then aghast. "You're selling me out for _tech_? For an Iron Man suit?"

"It's a potential weapon of mass destruction, Clint, remember? I can't give them that. You know that, you do."

"He _doesn't_ know that," Franklin observes cheerfully. "He just knows it's all your fault. Make it stop, Mr. Stark. Make all of it stop."

*******

They are moved again so Tony can sleep.

They wrench Clint's cuffed hands up high on his back, almost to his shoulder blades, and force his head down inches from the floor as he walks. His feet throb, the arches screaming every time his weight comes down on them. The lines on the tiled floor run together, seem to form a spidery kind of script as they move down the hall. He wonders if it's a message, if the Avengers have somehow gotten a message to him that he needs to read, that will tell him how to escape. He tries to slow down and read it, but is shoved forward. He overbalances but they catch him from behind by the handcuff chain before he hits the ground.

Then he's in another room, he's pretty sure it's the blue one, and he's not alone.

Loki is there.

Fucking Loki. The headliner of all his nightmares. Every enemy he has fought since the Battle of New York, Clint's imagined Loki's face on all of them, and there's a lot of other boogeymen that he could have chosen for that honor. The demi-god huddles in the corner with his knees tucked under his chin, his grin grotesquely huge, teeth filed sharp.

"Admit that you liked it," Loki whispers. "Being my vanguard. Dealing death to those that thought they were invincible. That thought their flying fortress could never be brought down, much less by the mind, will, and hands of one man. I am a God, and you were my right hand, my Angel of Death, delivering my justice. Tell me that it felt good to see them afraid, to be the one that others cowered from. It felt good. Admit it. Admit that when they screamed, you _liked_ it."

"No," he moans, and Phil is saying something into his comm, trying to comfort him, trying to orient him.

"If only we could have had Natasha with us," Loki muses. "You and she by my side--her fiery heart and your frozen one--we could have consumed the world. Part of you wanted that. Wanted to be unleashed, to destroy without doubt, without fear, without recrimination. Admit that you hated SHIELD as much as you ever loved it. Say it. Say that you liked it."

*******

Maybe he can give them something, Tony thinks. Just some information on the reactor. Not how to build it, God no, no way...but _something_. Just a piece. Maybe they'll trade a little bit of mercy for a little bit of information. That's all. Not the whole thing. It's not a concession, it's just a small compromise. A tiny one. And a futile one, because the team should be here any moment, and then it won't matter what Tony has told Franklin, because the man will be dead.

It wouldn't matter. It would be okay.

Wouldn't it?

Tony wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn't been born a genius. That he didn't have a mind that could create such wonderful and terrible things. His gifts have hurt the world as often as they have helped it, and have invariably hurt the people he cares about. He imagines a life where he and Pepper argue only about what movie to watch in the evenings, rather than his affinity for risking his life to save the world. He imagines a life where people aren't tortured to death just because they made the mistake of caring about Tony Stark.

********

"Let me out of here." Clint seems more coherent, which Tony knows is really impossible, but he also looks furious, glaring suspiciously with dry, reddened eyes. "Tell them what they want to know. I want out."

"I can't do it. I want to, but I can't. And I'm so sorry."

"I know." He says in a different tone, and sighs. "I know that, Tony, I do." Then, "It's a bomb, isn't it? Or something? Some weapon. You made another weapon when you promised you never would."

"No. It's a new arc--"

"You said you wouldn't make one, but changed your mind. I'm sure there was a good reason, right? There's always a good reason for someone like _you_." Clint's face goes unfocused, lost in a storm of those micro-naps, his head snapping up and down, eyes strange and staring and sightless.

Tony claps his hands together once, loudly. "Wake up!"

"I didn't like it," Clint says suddenly, and Tony winces. "I didn't _want_ it to happen."

Oh Jesus. Tony does not, under any circumstances, want to know whatever it is Clint is remembering, because he's got a couple ideas of what it could be and all of them are awful. "Clint. _Clint_. What you're seeing or hearing--it isn't real. You're in a room, with me, with Tony. You're hurt, but whatever you're imagining, that's not the thing that's hurting you now."

"I don't like it," he moans again, then jerks more awake and schools his features into something neutral, almost relaxed. "I am Iron Man." He opens his eyes, winks, gives Tony a knowing grin. "I am Iron Man."

"You're Hawkeye. _I'm_ Iron Man."

"Fuck you, I know who I am. I'm Tony Stark. I'm a billionaire. I have more money than God." Tony can't tell if Clint is hallucinating or working up to another angry rant. "I build friends. I buy them. But I can't keep them. Human hearts can't stand to be around me long. The only things that stay are made of metal, like me. Red metal." He bares his teeth and snarls, "Iron Man. Fucking _Iron_ Man. _Red_. I should have known right away, because of the _red_."

"Stop it. Enough. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry this is happening, but _stop_."

Clint falls silent for a bit, swaying back and forth. "Ninety-four. Ninety-eight. I want to go to the green room. Ninety-two. Eight...eighty..eight two. Two. Fucking _two_!"

Tony has no idea why he keeps counting, but something about it is disturbing. He wants to wrap his arms around Clint while simultaneously wanting to recoil from him; this seething man that wears the strained face of a friend he used to know. Tony's muscles jump with indecision, his mind warring itself, and he finally settles on just rests his palms lightly on Clint's back.

*******

"Do you have anything you'd like to tell me today?" Franklin stretches Clint's arms up high and loops the chain over the hook on the ceiling. "Or do you just _like_ seeing your friend dangle like a slab of meat?"

Tony glares at him and says nothing. Franklin shrugs in a what-can-you-do gesture then points to the plate on the floor. "That's for the two of you to share. Unless you're as selfish with food as you are with everything else." He winks as he departs.

"Let me down," Clint pleads.

"I can't. They'll make it worse if I do, remember? I know it doesn't seem like it, but this is better. Just hang on, the others should be here any second. Literally any second. We'll hear thunder and know they're coming. We'll watch and laugh as our team tears this place apart brick by brick."

Clint makes a noise and turns his head, trying to conceal his face behind his arms. Tony moves closer, afraid he'll start biting himself again. Not that there are many places left; everywhere he can reach is covered by duct tape, Franklin's treatment of his earlier attempts. He isn't biting himself this time, though, but crying silently, trying to hide the tears.

"I hate you," he says tonelessly.

"Don't say that. I know you don't mean it." Tony breaks apart the loaf of bread on the plate, takes a hesitant step forward. "Want some of this? You must be hungry."

"I'm _not_ just saying that." He raises his face to Tony's again, no longer sad, but furious. "I actually do hate you. Really. I just couldn't say it before, because we're on a team together. Now I don't give a shit. I _hate_ you. I always have. You make me fucking _sick_."

"Stop it, Hawkeye."

"Everything you do, have ever done, you've always ever done for yourself. Thinking of yourself. At least I take care of other people. Team Delta. I would have died for them in a heartbeat. But you. But _you_." Clint's lip curls away from his teeth. "You won't even let me down from here, you bastard. I could get all the way to the green and be safe. And you could help me if you wanted to. You _could_."

"You know very fucking well that I can't!" Tony snarls back. "Screw you, Clint Barton. I'm trying to help you and I know you're hurting, but you're being a raging bastard."

"That's right." Clint nods furiously. "It feels good. You know how it is, don't you? How it feels to watch someone suffer? Feels powerful. Feels _good_ , doesn't it?" Clint arches his head back as far as his bonds will allow, clenching his jaws so tightly that Tony imagines the teeth shattering, Clint grinding them steadily into powder. "Hurting people. He was right. He knew. That I like it. I _like_ it."

*******

They help Clint down to the floor, his legs and knees too exhausted to hold him up any longer. They position his face over a shallow tub of water, and he has to keep his head and shoulders up or risk drowning in it. Tony helps the best he can, pulling Clint up by the jaw occasionally, trying to keep him awake, trying to keep him alive.

Tony is shaking himself and before he even knows it's going to happen the words come, unbidden, to his lips. "What if I just-" He cuts the last syllable off as sharply as he can, the 't' sound hanging in the air like a gunshot.

Franklin grins broadly, recognizing the first crack in Tony's resistance. It won't take long now, won't many more taps before the crack fractures into a spiderweb.

********

Clint is back in the chains, kneeling again, and he's asleep.

Tony stands in front of him, talking in as low a volume as he can, trying to give the illusion to the guard outside the door that he is keeping Barton awake while hoping to block his view of the reality. The ruse might work, Tony thinks, if Clint was quiet, but his head rests tipped upward at an awkward angle on his neck, resulting in a strangled snoring noise.

Tony risks a quick peek at the guard, who watches them a little suspiciously. This won't last; Tony will have to start waking Clint up soon, before they see he's not upholding his end of the bargain. If they can just get a few more minutes before that has to happen. Just a few minutes of rest for Clint, a few minutes of peace for Tony.

Barton had come into this thing healthy and with his usual good natured swagger, but now--Ten days later? Eleven? Tony really has no idea anymore--Clint is pale and his eyes so deeply ringed in shadow that it almost looks false, as if he is wearing the exaggerated stage makeup of a Greek tragedy. Today he hasn't been talking at all--that's both terrifying and a relief--but yesterday had alternated between pleading pitifully one moment and then ranting the next, his words vicious and cutting.

Tony wonders how much had been Clint's delirium talking and how much of it was truth, honest opinion peeking through cracks in the polite shell that conceals the inner thoughts most people never express. He also wonders how much of Clint's cruelty is on purpose, trying to break Tony himself, trying to make him give up the information so he can be free. He's weakened, in terrible shape, but he had been a SHIELD agent, trained in the same manipulative methods as their captors, and he's good at them.

 _No_.

Tony clenches his teeth together. That's the kind of thing that Franklin wants him to think, one of his games, pitting them against each other. This isn't an enemy, it's a friend, one of his best friends. It's _Clint_ \--the guy with the goofy laugh and the dirty jokes. Clint, who had refused to kill the sparrow that flew into the Tower one day, instead chasing it around endlessly while the others watched and wept with laughter. Clint, who claimed that Captain America picked his nose in private, insisting that he'd seen it from his hiding spot in the air vents, grinning mischievously as Steve sputtered denials.

Maybe--probably--when they get out of here, that Clint will come back. Because that's the real Clint Barton, Tony insists to himself, not the snarling, desperate creature that he has become. When they get out of here, he'll come back.

 _If_ they get out.

Tony hears the guard shifting, trying to see around Tony, and feels frantic to delay the inevitable, of needing to rouse Clint in some painful way--gentle words just aren't working anymore. He would rather do anything but wake the man up, and for the first time it occurs to Tony that maybe it'd be kinder just to snap Clint's neck than to jerk him back into this waking nightmare. Clint is not going to last much longer as it is; he's dying a little more every hour that passes, and maybe Tony can spare him some of that pain.

And then Franklin can't hold him over Tony's head anymore, will have nothing left to threaten but Tony's own pain, and that would be better.

Maybe that would be better for everyone.

The guard is opening the door now, and Tony only has seconds left to decide if he can do it, if he can finish off his best friend out of compassion, if he can let that guard saw Clint's fingers off instead--the blood loss and shock would kill him quickly in the condition he's in now. Tony's heart is racing painfully and his hands shake as he raises them to Clint's face--every choice is bad, every one is unthinkable; there's _no_ choice, really, when all are so terrible.

Tony slaps him, hard, and Clint awakens with a gasp. There's something dead and broken in his eyes that mirrors Tony's heart.

*******

There are noises outside. Clint is beyond noticing, and Tony hardly cares. There isn't much to be afraid of anymore. A few minutes later the door flies open, and Franklin scrambles in, pulling it closed behind him.

"Here--" Franklin unlocks Clint's cuffs, and he falls immediately to the floor with a thud. "I'll let you both go, okay? You're alive, so I don't have to die." He pulls Clint up, trying to be gentle, but too terrified to move carefully. "Look, he's just fine." He thrusts him roughly to the floor in front of Tony, then fumbles to unlock his chains as well. "You're _both_ fine. There's no reason to kill me."

Tony wants to pull Clint close, but finds he can't bear to do it. He takes his hand instead, and fingers curl back around his immediately, limply.

"You know what I hear?" Tony's not sure he's shaking or if Clint is. "I hear the sound of doors being ripped from hinges. I hear gunshots. I hear a shield singing through the air. I hear the sounds of an angry Hulk. He's not going to like this. He's always had a pretty big smile for Hawkeye."

The sounds from outside grow louder. There are screams. Gunfire. Clanging metal, running footsteps. More screams.

"Oh no," Clint moans in a low, garbled voice. "He's drinking. Mama, don't let him in."

"Shhh." Tony grips his hand tighter and pats him awkwardly with the other, trying to soothe him with a bare minimum of touching. "You can rest. I know it's loud, but that's the sound of safety coming, not danger. Not for _us_."

He eyes Franklin meaningfully, unable to resist goading him a bit, hurting the way they had been hurt. "I hear the Hulk coming for you. You know what I  _won't_ hear, what _you_ won't hear? The Black Widow. She'll be silent as she looks for us. And when she starts playing her games with you--and she _will_ , once she sees what you have done to Clint--you'll be begging for death. And what I _also_ won't hear will be Captain America standing up for you, asking her to have compassion."

"Oh God," Franklin pleads. "Oh Jesus. This isn't happening. This isn't real." His babbling is such a contrast to the alternately bland or gleeful demeanor the man has always presented that Tony finds himself grinning a little.

Only because Franklin has it coming. Not for any other reason. Not because he _likes_ it.

Not because of that at all.

*******

It's Steve that rips the door open. Natasha stands behind him, tense, her pistols raised. Her eyes move from Clint to Franklin to Tony. Her face is a careful mask, but her eyebrow raises minutely.

"Every nightmare," Tony spits out. "Every nightmare Clint's ever had...this fucker made him have them awake. And me, too, I guess," he adds, looking away.

Steve moves closer, his hands ghosting over his teammates, checking for injuries. He gives Tony a concerned look and pulls Clint off the floor, holding him carefully. "We've got you. It's going to be okay now."

Natasha glides past them all toward Franklin, and runs a hand through his hair in a gesture that might look affectionate coming from anyone else. "Well, hello, pretty," she purrs. "What's _your_ name?"

"We need to leave right now, Natasha," Steve tells her. "Are you coming along?"

"Eventually." She keeps petting Franklin, tweaks his tie. "Go on ahead. I can make my own way back."

Her smile is wide and predatory and all Tony Stark wants in life right now is to get away from her, from Franklin, from Clint, from everyone who has ever smiled like that.

"Alright."

There's heavy footsteps and the Hulk is blinking down at all of them. Tony expects a growl or an angry roar; anything but the anguished sound that comes instead.

"They're alive, Big Guy," Steve assures him. "See? Here they are, Tony and Clint. They're both alive, we just need to take them home. Will you help me carry them?"

Hulk kneels down, casting a dark look at the man who cowers in the corner, an appraising look at Tony, a reproachful one at Steve. He reaches for Clint and rumbles a noise that sounds vaguely like "Mine".

"Okay, but _easy_ , okay? He's hurt. Be so gentle." Steve passes the archer to him, then holds his arms out for Tony. "Let's get you home."

*******

Clint moans fearfully as he is lifted into the air, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He doesn't want to see who has come this time, if it's Loki or Dad or any of the other hundreds of monsters who dance through his dreams. Clint tries to push himself away, but the arms just pull him closer. His ear is pressed up against a chest like stone, a heart that beats loudly, slowly, and the air moving in out and out of lungs sounds like the steady waves of an ocean.

It seems...safe. Clint forces his eyes to open and can only stare above himself in wonder. He reaches up with trembling fingers, presses them to the Hulk's cheek.

"Green," he whispers. "At last. It's green."

*******


	2. Chapter 2

  
*******

They're rescued, and that should be the happy ending, and for about half an hour it is just that. They sit in the jet while SHIELD agents mill around outside talking to one another. Natasha is still not back and Steve looks over Tony's minor injuries while Hulk cradles Clint, who is more unconscious than asleep.

Steve murmurs in a low voice that Tony mostly ignores, listening instead to the rumbling of the Hulk, which is subtly replaced by a differently pitched noise that almost sounds like words. Steve dabs at Tony's face and he closes his eyes obediently as Steve makes a pass with the towel, only to see Bruce Banner when he opens them again. He clutches Clint as tightly as his alter ego, his face horrified instead of possessive.

"What....are.....doing?" he slurs, trying to talk, trying to snap back into Banner too quickly, making a poor showing of it. "Hos..." Bruce shakes his head violently, trying to clear it. " _Hospital."_

In hindsight maybe it was naive, Tony supposes, to think that all Clint needed to do was to sleep, that he would be okay after about a hundred hours of rest. To ignore that his body had been systematically shutting itself down over the past week and a half. Steve goes out and signals for the medical team, which arrives promptly to whisk Clint away. They want to take Tony as well, but he refuses, gripping his seat and silently daring them to force the issue.

They don't, but it is almost midnight by the time Natasha finally emerges, angry but satisfied, and it's even later still by the time they drag themselves to SHIELD Medical, only to be immediately kicked out by a terrifying nurse.

*******

It's over a week before any of them get to see Clint; at first he's sleeping, then the doctor thinks he's not ready for visitors, then he has surgery to fix the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Tony is just about to lose his mind and is only half joking when he suggests a jailbreak, but they are finally allowed a visit, probably due to some intervention by Nick Fury. Tony and Natasha go first, she due to her longstanding claim over Clint's wellbeing, and he because no one dares suggest otherwise.

"Hi, guys." Clint doesn't smile, or even look happy to see them, and Tony wonders how much of that is from the drugs he's on, and how much is still fatigue. Clint is pale and his eyes deeply shadowed, his left arm casted at a right angle where his elbow had broken, the right arm heavily bandaged and immobilized against his chest. His hair lays plastered against his forehead from dried sweat, sticks up crazily in the back where it has pressed into the pillow.

"Tomorrow," Natasha says firmly, taking in his appearance. "You're coming home tomorrow." She tries to take his hand, but finding neither one functional enough to hold easily, settles for patting his leg instead.

"Sounds good," he says listlessly, then hesitantly looks at Tony. "You're okay."

So flat is his affect that Tony can't tell if it's a question or a statement of fact. "Well, you know me--can't keep a party princess down." He tries to pass it off lightly, but his shrug is more self conscious than dismissive, and Clint just stares at him. "Yeah, I'm okay," he adds, and is relieved when Clint's mouth twists into the slightest of smiles. "How about _you_? How are you doing?"

The smile disappears. "I'm tired," he answers, again in that tone Tony can't read at all.

*******

They leave pretty quickly, and a small part of him is disappointed, had wanted them to stay. But mostly Clint is just happy they're gone.

When he arrived in Medical he had slept for almost twenty hours straight, but since then he's been struggling. The doctor finally started giving him a sleeping aid, despite Clint's protests, insisting that his body needed rest to heal, and the painkillers tip him the rest of the way into the abyss. But the sleep doesn't last, because not only are the nightmares garbled and violent, but doctors and nurses also bustle in at all hours of the day, wake him up to check vitals, change bandages, draw blood. He wants to be away from here and back home, where he can lock the door and keep everyone away. Maybe then he can sleep, if he's sure no one else can get close.

Clint zones in and out, staring at the TV but not really watching it, his mind and body fighting a futile battle against pharmaceutically induced unconsciousness. After his teammates' visit the next thing he's really aware of is one of the doctors sitting on the edge of his bed reading from a piece of paper. Clint glances at it with a mild interest and realizes it's a long list of medications, tries to focus a bit harder and pay attention.

"--for two more weeks, along with physical therapy. At your follow up we'll see how things are healing and go from there. Now _this_ medication...I want you to continue it, okay? It's an anti-depressant. Twice a day, every day. Later we can determine--"

"No," he forces out finally, and the doctor looks surprised. Clint supposes he hasn't been talking as much as he should have recently. "I don't want--" He clears his throat, tries again, relieved when he sounds stronger. "I don't want to take _anything_."

"Well, I really think you should," the doctor scolds mildly, as if that explains everything, as if that will convince Clint to suddenly agree.

But he does agree, eventually, but it's only to end the conversation, to make the man get the hell out of his room and let him wait for Natasha to come and drive his sorry ass back home. Clint has zero intention of taking that medicine, or any of the others, plans to come off this mindnumbing cocktail he's been floating on as soon as he can manage it.

*******

She deposits him at his apartment with the promise that she'll be back after she runs to the pharmacy. She smirks knowingly as she says it, then tweaks his nose when he scowls back at her. It's so normal that it takes him by surprise, and somehow that makes him even more irritated. Clint opens his door the minimum amount he needs to get in, then slips inside and slams it in her face. He knows he's acting like a jerk and gives not two shits about it.

"JARVIS?" he says hesitantly, ignoring the colorful swearing coming from the other side of the door.

"Yes, Agent Barton?"

"I don't want anyone to be able to come in. No one. Not for any reason. Alright?"

"Of course, sir."

"Not _anyone_ ," Clint insists, unwilling to say Tony's name but hoping JARVIS will understand anyway. "Promise me."

"I promise, sir."

" _Promise_."

"I promise, sir."

He fights the urge to ask again, because it's a little ridiculous to wring assurances out of an artificial intelligence, much as he wants to. Clint drops into bed carefully and pulls blankets around himself, but can't get them as tight as he wants due to his stupid cast and stupider shoulder sling. He feels too open, too exposed. He considers hiding, but that's just pathetic, hiding in his own apartment, hiding in Avengers Tower, where he's surrounded by superheroes and should feel safer than safe.

*******

Tony also can't sleep. He's had insomnia for ages, but never really considered it a problem since so many of his best ideas come while the world slumbers but his mind continues racing. But now sleep doesn't happen because he's full of ideas, but because he can't shake the feeling that something terrible will happen to Pepper, or to his friends, if he dares to drift off. That every moment he sleeps they will spend suffering.

He knows that's not true, knows it perfectly well--everyone is safely at the Tower, even Clint is back, and Tony has JARVIS keeping closer watch on the team than ever before. No one would be pleased about that, but they don't need to know. _Tony_ needs to know. He needs to know that they're okay, that nothing will happen if he can prevent it.

Pepper was with him non-stop the first week, but Stark Industries is a growing, living fire that needs constant tending, and she was needed soon enough.

"I don't feel like I should leave you," she told Tony, even as she was packing. "I want to stay. I think it would be good if I did."

"Well, I love having you around, but don't feel like you have to stay if there's work to do. Don't do it for my sake. I'm a big boy." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "As you well know." She laughed obediently, then curled into his open arms. "Be safe, Pep. Give Europe hell and then come home to me."

He did want her to stay, really, but also knew that there would never be point where he could let her go without misgivings, so it might as well go ahead and happen. Tony had never been much of a worrier but now he's consumed by the thought that anything could happen to her, to any of them--a plane crash, a car crash, a kidnapping, a robbery gone wrong, a flash flood, an earthquake, a fucking tsunami. The list is endless and so overwhelming to think on that he kissed her goodbye with a big fake smile and spent the rest of the day drinking himself senseless.

Now Clint is back from Medical, and Tony is glad--for the most part. But when the archer hadn't been around it was easier to imagine all of it had never happened, to blot those twelve days of misery out and act like things were normal. But now that he's here it's going to be almost impossible to pretend, and harder to forget. 

Clint disappeared into his apartment and hasn't been heard from since. JARVIS reports that Clint forbade anyone to be let inside, but Tony knows that Natasha will force her way in eventually, then Steve, then Bruce. They'll take care of Clint, will coax and bully him back to health. Tony hopes he can avoid the man until then; can just not see him until he emerges, fully restored to his grinning, sunny self.

Maybe by then Tony will be himself again, too.

  
*******

It's around midnight on his second day home that Clint has to admit things are...not good. His neck, back, and arms are a solid block of screaming pain that makes even the simplest of tasks almost impossible. It's lucky that he doesn't have much of an appetite, because he can't reach any of the food in his cabinets, and eating and drinking are tricky anyway. His casted arm has its own bad shoulder and can't reach his mouth at all, so he has to pick everything up with that hand and pass it awkwardly to the one pinned to his body. It would almost be comical if it weren't so frustrating, and his hands shake so badly that he ends up spilling most of whatever he's drinking down his shirt.

Sleep is a joke, sleep isn't happening at all, sleep seems to be part of an old life that just isn't allowed to him anymore. The pain makes it impossible to get comfortable, even on the couch where he can kind of sit up and recline at the same time, but even if his body could relax his brain is stuck in hyper vigilance.

He leaves the television on but muted, ears straining constantly for the sound of anything amiss, of anyone approaching, as he sprawls out uncomfortably, trying to drift off. It's not working very well; he keeps shivering, which jostles everything agonizingly, and is also sweating to a disgusting degree all over his poor, beleaguered couch. When JARVIS' low voice suddenly breaks the silence it sounds as loud as a gunshot, startling Clint so badly that he almost tumbles to the floor.

"Agent Barton?" -then- "I apologize for alarming you."

"What?" Clint growls, angry but also a bit euphoric, temporarily pain free thanks to all the adrenaline just dumped into his system. "What do you want?"

"Agent Barton, may I please call someone to help you?"

"No!" he snaps then amends it to "No _thanks_." There's not any call to be rude, especially to the artificial intelligence that controls the heating and cooling of his apartment.

Then, about thirty minutes later, "You appear to be unwell, Agent Barton, may I please call some assistance for you?"

"Fuck you, and fuck your assistance," Clint grits out between waves of returned pain, abandoning politeness, trying to focus on the movie playing. It's hard to follow without sound, but there are British soldiers and werewolves and explosions, and Clint isn't sure if he's not thinking clearly or if the movie is just that incomprehensible.

"Agent Barton, you appear to be in medical distress," JARVIS says in an automatic voice quite unlike his usual velvety one. "Protocols dictate that I must summon assistance for you. I am doing so now."

Clint glares at the ceiling; hiding behind protocols as a workaround to the locked door situation is clever, but it's also a pretty low blow. "JARVIS, you traitor. Turncoat. Lousy double crossing Judas!" He'd probably sound more intimidating if his teeth weren't chattering so hard. "You promised. You _promised_ me."

"I'm sorry, Clint," JARVIS says, and he actually sounds it as the front door bangs open and Steve, shirtless and wearing only a pair of striped pajama pants, comes tearing into the the room.

*******

"Oh my God," Steve says. "We need to call your doctor."

"I just need a blanket," Clint protests blearily. "I would have gotten one, but they're up too high in the closet." He hopes maybe he'll get lucky and Steve will just throw one over him and leave.

"Let me help you to bed, there are plenty of blankets there." Steve reaches out then hesitates, not knowing how to best lift him from the couch.

And then there she is, the Black Widow, in all her furious glory.

"Oh, fuck my life," Clint moans.

"You locked me out." Natasha seethes. "You _ever_ do that again, and I will do things to you that make Budapest seem like a tickle party. Understand?" She shoves Steve aside and puts a hand to Clint's cheek, glaring into his eyes. "Christ, _look_ at you. Where's your pain medication?" He looks at her blankly and she pops his jaw in an almost-slap. " _Clint._  Where's the huge bag of pills I dropped off yesterday--before you slammed the door in my face a second time?"

He scowls and Natasha snorts indignantly. "You threw them in the trash, didn't you? Jerk." She stalks to his kitchen muttering angrily. "They'd _better_ be at the top and still in the bag, or you're getting murdered today, I shit you not."

Bruce and Tony arrive also, Bruce hurrying over immediately, Tony hanging back in the doorway uncertainly. Clint groans, considers burying his face in a pillow so he can smother to death. "God, everyone's here now. Great, this is just _so_ great."

Bruce reaches out carefully to feel Clint's forehead and neck. "I don't think you have a fever. You look terrible. You should have called us sooner."

"You do realize that _I_ didn't call you in the first place," Clint points out.

"How about you just not speak, and that includes arguing with me about these." Natasha returns with a handful of pills and a glass of water. Clint tries to reach for them but she narrows her eyes in warning and starts pushing them one by one into his mouth.

*******

Tony edges into the room as the others fuss over Barton. They seem stressed and worried but also relieved; the whole lockdown thing had really rattled them until Tony and JARVIS came up with a valid way to circumvent it. Clint is pale and soaked in sweat, shaking both from pain and going cold turkey off whatever drugs they'd stuffed him full of in Medical. His eyes keep skipping over to Tony, as if tracking his position to make sure he stays far away.

Bruce unfastens Clint's sling and peels off his shirt to check all the wounds underneath; Tony flinches at the bruises, at the bite marks that march up his skin in irregular lines. Clint balks at the suggestion of Bruce and Steve helping him with a shower, then wisely reconsiders after Natasha's withering look. They pull him to his feet and set to the task as she goes to straighten up the kitchen, tossing things around and slamming drawers more than really cleaning.

"Can I--Should I help?" Tony asks.

She glares at him but he can see the worry underneath the anger. "Food. He'll need something in his stomach with those painkillers."

"Food, yeah, I'm excellent with food." He isn't, not in the slightest, but he tells himself that cooking is just science and he's _amazing_  at that. He opens cabinet after cabinet and discovers only bread, one can of diced tomatoes, and a perplexing quantity of boxed raisins. "Or, I can, you know, _order_ some food. I'm even better at that."

"Toast some bread, Tony, it's not that hard."

"There isn't anything to put on it." The refrigerator is also empty except for one lonely bottle of orange juice.

"Then the asshole gets dry toast."

The drugs have fully kicked in by the time Steve helps Clint into bed and he's wobbly and passive as Bruce wrangles him into clean clothing and immobilizes his shoulder. Tony hovers in the bedroom doorway, awkwardly holding a plate with a single burnt piece of toast, sure Clint will fall asleep any second. His eyes droop but remain stubbornly open, and it's obvious that he's fighting to stay awake.

Clint is just starting to breathe rapidly when Steve asks what's wrong. "I can't...I need you to leave. Everyone to leave. Please."

"Not happening," Natasha declares, then exchanges an alarmed look with Bruce when her words tip Clint straight into panic, though muted from the medication.

"Get _out_ ," he slurs loudly. "I won't make JARVIS lock you out, I promise, but I can't have you here when I'm trying to--" Bruce moves toward him but backs away immediately, hands up, when Clint kicks at him sluggishly. "Please leave. Get out." Clint's eyes settle on Tony. "Get out. You can't be here."

They're the desperate words of someone in the midst of a panic attack, and Tony knows that he shouldn't take them personally, but he does. He does, because it _is_ personal; he knows the history behind the sentiment, why Clint can't fall asleep with anyone around him. Especially not one of his former tormenters.

The others remain, still trying to reason with Clint, but not Tony. He's gone.

And he does his best to stay gone.

*******

The team is called out a few days later. Clint doesn't respond at all, not even to mope about not getting to come along, but Tony suits up immediately. It's just what he needs, to kick some ass, to pretend to be a hero for awhile. It's pretty great, even if he does overextend a little, trying to keep his eyes on everyone. For one horrible moment it looks like an enemy is going to get the drop on Natasha, but Tony intervenes. He hurls the man from the rooftop she's on and doesn't bother checking if he survives or not. He turns to Natasha, expecting a look of approval, surprised when it doesn't come.

On the way home everyone is uncharacteristically silent.

"That can't happen again," Steve says finally, and Tony realizes the odd expression on Steve's face is actually barely contained anger.

"What can't happen? Undisputed victory? You'd think it'd get old, winning over and over," Tony observes, flipping controls back and forth, spinning his seat, too keyed up to sit still. "But it never does. _Never_!"

"I can't have you out there that way again, Tony. It's dangerous...for everyone."

Tony laughs. "Oh, _please_. We're already a man short due to Badly Broken Barton."

"I'd rather be two Avengers down than see you in that condition."

Tony huffs in disbelief. "'Condition'," he scoffs. "At my worst I'm better than ten of you guys. You _need_ me." Steve doesn't answer and Tony doesn't care for the way no one is really looking at him. "Fine, you can bench me, but I might just come along anyway. It's not like you could stop me." He grins to show it's a joke. Which it is. Mostly.

But Steve doesn't take it that way. "I could stop you," he says seriously, and Natasha raises her eyebrows, following the exchange with cautious interest.

Tony snorts derisively and is about to push the issue when Bruce interrupts quietly.

" _I_ would stop you."

*******

Tony raids the ice cream Bruce has hidden in the back of the freezer that night, a petty retaliation for his betrayal, but it's the best he can do at the moment. He's just finished all the neopolitan and is eyeing the vanilla speculatively--it's Banner's favorite--when Clint appears. 

"Hey, Barton."

Clint jumps noticeably, but when he turns his face is carefully neutral. "Oh. Hi. I didn't think anyone would be up."

"No one should be; it's one million o'clock," Tony points out. "How have you been?" It feels awkward and formal, like running into a old lover after a nasty breakup.

"Good, good. I'm just great." Clint doesn't look at him as he continues into the kitchen and slowly gathers bread, peanut butter, a knife. "Yourself?"

"Fantastico." He watches Clint carry everything uncomfortably with two mostly useless arms, but doesn't offer to help, certain he'll be rebuffed.

There's something unusual about the way Clint is dressed and it takes Tony a moment to realize that he's wearing a long sleeved shirt. Clint could never stand long sleeves, unwilling to wear anything that interfered with his archery, but now he's wearing them, one sleeve cut raggedly off to accommodate the cast. Tony starts to comment but stops himself, remembering the bite marks on Clint's other arm. He's chosen this shirt to cover them up, probably embarrassed, and something about that makes Tony incredibly sad.

"So, hey, I've been meaning to ask you..."

Clint stiffens, then turns his head to look at Tony, his back and neck so tense that Tony can almost hear the tendons creaking, like the door of a haunted house. "Yeah?"

"That story you told--with the girl and the three clowns and the watermelons...was any of that true?" It's an opening, a chance for connection, a plea of sorts. _Come on, Clint._ _Talk to me. Joke around like you used to. Let's pretend to be normal, until we can stand to be normal for real._

"Oh." Clint laughs--a staccato 'ha ha ha' that is a sad mockery of his usual loud guffaw. "No. I mean, some of that _did_ happen, but didn't have anything to do with sex. Well, not overtly, anyway."

He picks up the knife to spread the peanut butter, his hand just hovering in the air, then sets it carefully on the counter again. He stands there for another moment, looking at his partially constructed sandwich, before he turns on his heel and walks stiffly out.

"Yeah," Tony sighs into the empty room. "That's what I thought you'd say."

*******

Tony isn't three sheets to the wind--more like one and a half sheets, maybe. It's only ten in the morning, and he would be bothered by that fact except that he had never gone to sleep the night before, and this buzz is just a carryover. That makes it far more acceptable. 

He's looking for a screwdriver. He has a multimillion dollar tower with all the luxuries a person could ever want, filled to bursting with toys and tools and state of the art fucking _everything_ , and yet he can never find a simple screwdriver when he needs one. Pepper had jokingly suggested including one in every room of the building--even bathrooms--tethered permanently to a wall, and now he thinks that maybe was not a bad idea.

He heads to the library, remembering vaguely that he had stuck a screwdriver once through the globe there to prove a point, and hears them talking. Part of him is pretty pissed that they are having a team meeting without inviting him. Or Clint, apparently, which means that the meeting is probably about him. Or about  _both_ of them, more likely.

"We just need to be patient; sometimes it takes time to get better," Steve suggests, but Natasha disagrees vehemently.

"No. You've got to get ahead of things like this. Clint will barely communicate and Tony is coming apart at the seams."

"Neither one is sleeping," Bruce says. "Clint seems...unwell. I'm wondering if we should try to convince him to go back to Medical."

"Or how about a psych ward?" Tony suggests casually, and they look up in surprise--Bruce and Steve a little guilty, Natasha just annoyed. "It's always been just a matter of time before an Avenger ended up in the booby hatch. Might as well be Barton as anybody." He shrugs.

"Listen, we were just--" Steve starts to say, but Tony waves him off and liberates his screwdriver with flourish--it's in the globe, just as he thought, shoved in between Afghanistan and Iran--and stalks off. He hears someone coming up behind him and is steeling himself to deal with the disappointed earnestness of Steve Rogers when Natasha pushes him into the first empty room, slamming the door behind them.

"Don't get me wrong," Tony says with a leer, trying to cover the way his anxiety skyrockets the second she touches him, "this is kind of hot, but I'm with Pepper."

"What happened between the two of you?" she demands. "What did Clint do?"

"He didn't do anything." Tony is frustrated to discover he's not as drunk as he had hoped, just exhausted. "The head guy, Franklin, was into mindfuckery and kept trying to turn us on one another. Clint was balls deep in NeverNeverLand and walked right into it. It wasn't his fault, and I _know_ that."

"He did something," she insists. "What was it? Tell me."

"Oh, he couldn't _do_ anything, but he said plenty. But, like I just told you, I know why he did. He wasn't himself."

Natasha just raises her eyebrows and waits. Tony rolls his eyes and balances the screwdriver on his palm until she snatches it away. "Tell me what happened," she says again, this time more gently.

"They made me help." He hasn't told anyone that, unable to make himself face them after they understand that he had willingly participated in Clint's suffering. "I yelled, hit him, did everything I could think of. Franklin was tearing him apart and I thought I could make it better if I--" God, it sounds so stupid as he says it now, but at the time it had seemed the only option, the best of a bad bunch. Tony can't look at her, can't bear her burning gaze now that she knows. She'll probably kill him, and at this point he'd gladly let her.

She puts a hand on his arm. Nothing more than that, just a steady pressure.

"You hurt him." Natasha shrugs pragmatically. "And I can guess how he responded to that. Clint is the best person I know, but he's ugly when he lashes out, and he goes straight for the tender spots. He fights dirty when it comes to survival, unapologetically dirty. It's why he's so good at what we do. No one works for SHIELD and comes out clean." She sighs. "But that's not who he is all the time. Not who he wants to be when he gets to choose differently. And the same goes for you."

"I know that. I _do_."

"Well, knowing and believing are two separate things, unfortunately." She reaches out to tip up his chin, Tony's dark eyes unwillingly meeting hers. "They tried to break you both, and maybe it would have happened, had it continued. Maybe not. There's no way to know, and it's pointless to wonder. But don't let Franklin keep working you now. He's lost his agency in the world. He's dead. But you and Clint aren't."

*******

There's a knock at the door, and Clint groans in frustration. "What?"

"It's Steve." His voice is pitched low, muffled. "Can Natasha and I see you for a minute?"

Well, _crap_. The last person on earth Clint wants to deal with is Captain America, with his determined jaw and sad, puppy dog eyes. He considers telling Steve to get bent, but cooperating whenever they come to check on him is the compromise he agreed to in return for someone not staying with him all the time. Clint sighs and lets them in, checks the hall for anyone else, and kicks the door closed.

"How are you doing, Clint?" Steve asks, moving blankets the coffee table so he can sit on the couch. Natasha parks beside him and frowns at the state of the apartment.

Clint sits in the only other chair, an overstuffed thing that he never uses, feeling uncomfortable, anticipating an interrogation or similarly unpleasant conversation. "I'm good."

"The doctor came by yesterday, right? How's everything healing up?"

"I have about three more weeks in this thing," he answers, frowning at his cast. "Physical therapy on the shoulder starts next week." He sighs glumly. "And it looks like I'll probably have to have surgery to fix the other one, too."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's taking you too long to shake this off," Natasha declares bluntly, ignoring the pleasantries. "You're not coming out of it like you should."

"Well, excuse the hell out of me," he snaps back. "Not everyone can be a supersoldier or Lady Terminator. I'll endeavor to get back on your recovery timetable as soon as I can fucking manage."

"It's not like that at all," Steve insists. "We only want to help."

Natasha's love is a little tougher. "This moping around is beyond ridiculous, you sad sack. It happened, it's over, it's _done_. Pull yourself together. No more wallowing around in your personal mud puddle of woe."

Steve is obviously taken aback by her choice of words, but Clint finds himself chuckling, in spite of himself. 'Personal mud puddle' had been one of Phil Coulson's favorite expressions, and he applied it liberally to a number of Clint Barton situations--swanning about in a mud puddle of joy, stewing in a mud puddle of anger, flailing about in a mud puddle of inebriation. What he would give to have Phil here now; he had been as steely as Natasha and yet more open handed with his comfort--the perfect kind of balance that Steve always attempts, but doesn't quite pull off.

"Alright," Clint sighs. "I have a headache, so just give the condensed version of what I must do to please you."

"Counseling."

He'd throw up his hands in disgust if he had any good arms left. "Therapy, _really_. Groundbreaking. Earth shattering. Why is that always your goddamned solution?"

"Because it's usually the best one," Steve says seriously, and Clint bites back a smile, because this time he _does_ sound like Phil.

*******

They send Bruce for Tony.

"Brucie! I was just making a drink. Want one?"

"No thanks." Bruce sits at the counter and pushes the napkin holder, moves the container of straws by tiny increments, adjusting them in a kind of minibar feng shui. "Tony," he says finally.

"Ugh, can we just _not_." Bruce is easier to read than a picture book, and Tony can see the heartfelt platitudes coming from ten miles away.

"Tony, it's time to stop treading water. Time to head toward shore."

"Swimming metaphors, yay!" Tony gulps his drink and pours another. "What about Clint? Gonna reel him in, too? Better call the Coast Guard, cause that motherfucker's lost at sea."

"Of course we want to help Clint, too. We want to help both of you."

"Is this the royal 'we' or a specific 'we'?"

"The team. Your family. People that care about you." Tony snorts dismissively and Bruce adds "Natasha told us what you said happened."

"Oh." Tony raises his glass and then sets it down instead. "So now you know."

"I know that it isn't fatal. I know that it isn't insurmountable. I know that you both have gotten past other traumas and come out stronger on the other side. Those are all things that I know. But what I _don't_ know is how you feel about it, because you won't talk to any of us."

Tony sighs and plops down on a bar stool beside Bruce. "I hated him a little," he forces out finally. "Not for what he said, but because they used him to get to me. Then I was disgusted with myself and hated him for that, too." Bruce doesn't say anything, just waits. "Near the end he was so far gone I even thought about..." He can't go on, can't admit to what he had considered.

Bruce knows anyway. "But you didn't. He wasn't too far gone, and neither are you."

"Are you sure? It reminds me of this one time I was brushing my teeth and left the water running--and I looked down and there was a mayfly in the sink, trying to get out. I felt bad; I would have let it go if I'd noticed it beforehand. But it had been hit with all that water, it wouldn't be able to fly anymore, so I just turned up the faucet and let it wash down the drain. It seemed kinder than watching it struggle. But then, the second it disappeared, I regretted it."

"You made fun of _my_ metaphor?" Bruce observes wryly, smiling and nudging Tony with his elbow. "This anecdote is a wee bit on the nose."

"You think?" Tony has to laugh. "Subtlety has never been in my wheelhouse."

"I'm just wondering if you're comparing that mayfly to Clint, or to yourself."

"To Clint," Tony says in surprise, having thought that was pretty obvious.

Bruce shrugs noncommittally. "If you say so." He picks up an empty glass and tosses it lightly back and forth between his hands. "I know another guy who thinks like that, in absolutes, in terms of only powerful and weak."

"The Hulk. Our big green deus ex machina."

Bruce's face is solemn. "You don't want to think that way, about how you're capable of thinking that way. Neither do I. It's something I war with--quite publicly, I might add. I would always choose compassion, always choose the gentle path, if I could. But sometimes it just isn't up to us. And you have to sort through the pieces afterward, put them back together the best that you can, and shore yourself up for the next battle. And the one after that."

"Sounds like a real bummer," Tony observes, then adds unhappily, "I don't think I'm looking forward to that at all."

"Then it's a good thing you won't have to do it alone."

*******

It's a testament to their longtime friendship that when he asks Natasha to sleep with him, she doesn't even blink, just agrees.

His arm and shoulders are an ongoing nightmare, but even if he were physically ready SHIELD wouldn't approve him for duty. He still can't handle anyone being nearby when he tries to sleep--medicated or otherwise--and he needs to be able to do that to go back in the field. They are holed up for too long in strange places too regularly for him to pretend otherwise. He has to push past this, and Natasha is the logical choice to help.

"Which shrink did they give you?" she asks as she tosses her pillow onto Clint's bed, then pushes most of the covers away from her side toward his.

"Thorsett." Clint decides even he can't handle that many blankets, wads them up and throws them across the room to the laundry basket, grimacing painfully. Natasha gives him a blank look and he adds, "Late 40's, freckles, glasses, looks like an adult Hermione Granger."

"Oh, yeah, I know who that is." She smirks a little at the description. "So, how's the exorcism of your crazy coming along?"

"Okay. Still, I have no doubts of its resiliency. Bartons don't do anything self destructive halfway. But she thinks this is a good idea, so here we are." He's already anxious about this and unable to hide it, not that he ever could, not from Natasha. They get into bed, she curled up on her side, watching him, and he flat on his back, eyes resolutely on the ceiling, willing himself to relax.

Maybe a half hour goes by, Natasha just waiting, Clint shifting uncomfortably, scratching at his cast, fiddling with his pillow. The silence starts to be too much and Clint grasps the first thing he can think of to fill it.

"How did you do it?"

There's no need for her to ask what he means. "Maybe this isn't the right time to talk about that."

"I disagree. I could use a bedtime story. I'm in the perfect emotional state to hear about how you killed Franklin."

She considers this, then answers, "Slowly. He felt all of my tender ministrations."

" _How_?" he insists, turning on his side to face her, ignoring the numerous pains that flare up.

Natasha sighs, then trails her finger over the marks on his arm, healed to crisscrossing red ovals that crawl up from his wrist like a tangle of vines. "I saw the look in your eyes, and then I saw _this_. And I knew what I wanted to do after I played with my knives, with my hands. I let him hover there, on the edge, for hours and then...I bit him to death."

"That's a pretty fucked up thing to do," he observes after a long moment. "Steve wouldn't like that."

She shrugs indifferently. "He doesn't need to know."

"The _team_ wouldn't like it." He generally avoids looking at the bite marks, but he does it now, imagines placing his mouth over them, lining each one up perfectly with his teeth. "They wouldn't understand something like that, but I do. God forgive me--that I can understand something like that."

"I love our teammates. Every single one." Natasha pulls Clint close, her words a sigh in his ear, holds him almost too tightly. It's more affection than she usually allows herself to show, and more than he usually allows himself to accept. "But I love you more."

He clutches her back, and he tries, he really does. Tries to let those sweet words be the cure that makes him miraculously well again. Tries to keep his eyes shut and trust that the sensation of falling, and then of a painful catch, will not come. That no one will scream his name, no shocks will turn the world bright white, that no water will come to drown him.

But it happens anyway, that his terror overpowers his trust, and he shoves her away in a panic before he can fall asleep. She moves right back, undaunted, refuses to leave.

And that is why he really chose Natasha for this--not because she goes on missions with him or because they've been friends for a decade, but because Bruce or Steve would be driven away immediately. They would respect his wishes and retreat, all sad-eyed and worried, but not Natasha. She loves him, maybe more than anyone in his life ever has, but she is also relentlessly practical and a believer in getting shit over and done with.

"Get away from me," he gasps, pushing at her again, but it's a token effort, because he already feels faraway and fuzzy from a lack of oxygen as his throat closes up.

"No." She scoots closer still. "It's just a panic attack, Clint, like the any of the others that you and I have had before. Not the worst one, either, not even by half. Just let it happen, let yourself go through it." She leans forward, touching her forehead to his. "Just keep breathing, because it won't last. It will end, and when it does it will be gone, but you'll still be here. And so will I."

She says it with confidence, her voice low and strong and steady, says it dozens of times, maybe a hundred, until it's over, until he believes it.

They fall asleep together, and repeat the process again the next night and many after that.

*******

The following week Tony hears from Steve that Clint is having more surgery and isn't especially surprised; he'd seen the way those chains pulled and wrenched his friend's body. "Ouch," he says sympathetically. "Poor old Tweetie Bird. It'll be ages before he can shoot again."

"Probably," Steve agrees.

"Shouldn't he, uh, wait to do that till he's not also recovering from...stuff?"

"He wanted to get it done while his other arm is out of commission anyway."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess." Tony can't help but notice that everyone else has been doing a lot of discussing and planning, even Clint. He wonders why he has been kept out of the loop, but supposes that he hasn't exactly made himself available. They could well be having these conversations together openly in the common area, which he has scrupulously avoided for weeks.

"He only has to stay over in Medical one night, then will be back home," Steve goes on, and his voice is suddenly careful. "We've been working out shifts to stay with him the first few days, to help out during the worst of it." He lets the sentence hang meaningfully.

"He won't want _me_ there," Tony says quickly. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I am the last person on earth Clint would want around when he has two busted arms and can't defend himself."

"You don't know that; he's doing a lot better," Steve insists. "He would like to see you. And I think it would be good for you, too."

"For _me_? I can't imagine how playing nursemaid to a grumpy Barton could ever be a positive thing for me."

"It would be good for you to _help_ him. To help him now the way you couldn't back then."

"Stick to inspiring battle speeches, Captain America," Tony advises, not unkindly. "Psychology is just not your thing."

*******

A few days later he watches Clint return from SHIELD Medical with a solicitous Bruce, who herds him immediately to his apartment to begin yet another recovery period.

Tony makes up a bouquet of explosive arrows and scrawls "Stop being hurt" on a card. He intends to take them over but pauses outside the door, second guessing the gesture. Then several days go by and he decides he's waited too long, and scraps the idea entirely.

Bruce fishes the arrow bouquet out of the laboratory trash and delivers it immediately.

******

Clint sits next to him, as tense as a live wire, staring inscrutably at the floor. Tony wants to take it personally, but reminds himself that his own face probably looks just as strained and unapproachable. He tries to make himself relax, but only manages a graceless full body twitch instead.

"Who would like to start?" Dr. Thorsett asks. 

They're both here, they're both trying--Clint asked for this and Tony grudgingly agreed. He typically finds counseling a gigantic waste of time, but as much as he wants this conversation to be over, he wants things to be better between them more. Clint had made the first overture, so Tony thinks he should make the next, and he might as well go for broke, swing for the fences.

"I will. I'm sorry," he says, turning toward Clint, who looks up at him quickly. "I'm sorry that I couldn't help you. What's worse, I _hurt_ you, and I hate myself for that. I'm so sorry."

"Me, too," Clint surprises him by saying. "I don't remember most of it, but I know I made things harder for you. I hope you believe that I wouldn't do that...wouldn't do that on purpose. If I--if I could--you know..." he gestures vaguely, flustered.

"If you could choose," Tony offers, thinking of Natasha's words, and Clint nods, relieved. "I know. And I understand. Better than I ever wanted to."

Clint sighs unhappily, looking away. "I'm sorry for _that_ , too."

"What do you mean?" the doctor prods.

"There are some things--" Clint trails off and shakes his head sadly, helplessly. "When it comes to things like this, to understanding things like this...what I wish the most for my friends is _ignorance_."

They sit in silence for a long time, and the doctor lets them, lets it unfold, lets them think.

Tony feels, well, not like a weight has been lifted off his chest, but more like it has been _moved_. Set carefully aside so that he can take a few deep breaths. And maybe that weight won't stay away, maybe it will come right back, but for now, for right now, he can breathe a little easier.

"Now, you've said you can't remember much about what happened," the counselor says gently. "And you and I have discussed that, but could you share with Tony what you _do_ remember?"

Clint covers his eyes with his hands, pressing hard. "It's bits and pieces mostly. Hurting, yelling, begging. I remember wanting to die but also thinking I could get out of there if I just worked hard enough. Being worried for someone that I hated at the same time. I remember blood and chains and colors, threats and promises." He sighs deeply, then moves his hands away.

"And _that_ ," he adds slowly, after a long pause, "is the story of my first sexual experience."

Tony barks out a shocked, delighted laugh while the doctor sputters, and Clint winks at him, mouth quirked up in his old crooked grin.

*******

**Epilogue**

  
A few days later Tony is still awake at 2am, surrendering to the reality of another sleepless night, trying to zone out in the common room to a movie. He looks up in surprise when Barton walks in, and they nod at one another, Tony grinning when Clint gives the clock a forlorn grimace. He hesitates, then sits on the couch. There are a number of other seats, but he sits right next to Tony, who thinks there must be some meaning to the gesture.

"What is _this_ shit?" Clint asks finally, brow furrowed, eyes on the movie.

"It's called 'Cat People'. It's about people that turn into panthers when they have sex. It's...a documentary."

"Uh huh." Clint rolls his eyes but smiles a little.

"It has a really kickass David Bowie tune at the beginning; I can restart it if you want to hear."

"Yeah, sure, okay." He pauses. "Wait, hold on--did that guy just eat what I _think_ he ate?"

"Yes."

"Aww, man, that's _gross_."

Tony sets the movie back to the beginning. Clint raises his eyebrows appreciatively through the Bowie song, then nestles back into the couch cushions in an attempt to get comfortable. He is obviously tense but trying to appear otherwise, and neither of them say anything as the minutes pass.

The movie is in its final acts by the time Clint's breathing seems to come a little steadier, easier, and he drifts off at a painfully slow rate, Tony watching surreptitiously the whole time. When Clint's eyes snap open immediately at the sound of screams from the television Tony curses himself inwardly for not muting it.

"Just a routine cinematic murder," he murmurs. "Not even of a main character." Clint's eyes flicker to Tony's face, considering, then close again. Tony waits a few more minutes, turns the volume down to a low hum.

As the credits roll Clint is asleep, and so far there are no bad dreams.

Tony feels himself wanting to nod off also, thinks that it might feel nice to do just that. But not right now, not just yet. He wants the chance to do what he hadn't been able to in that cell, to watch over Clint, to make sure that nothing happens. He wants to ensure that no one ends this peaceful moment that they've both had long in coming, to still be keeping watch when his friend finally wakes up.


End file.
